Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

gavin6942 An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.While it is surprising that the animals being slaughtered are horses and not cows or pigs, this no less takes away from the power of the film. If anything, it might add to it (people tend to be more emotionally attached to horses than cows). There is no better way to explain the inside of an abattoir than to show it.I guess if I had to complain about anything, it is that the narrator refers to the horses as "victims" and seems to have a generally unfavorable view of the whole business. Documentaries should be neutral when possible and not include language that pushes the viewer one way or another. Is it bad to slaughter animals? Is it okay but the methods are just wrong? Or maybe it is not wrong at all, but we have become disconnected from it and therefore more sensitive to its foreign nature.I am not going to judge a slaughterhouse, at least not in this review. But I do fear that as beautifully shot as this brief piece was, it did not give audiences a fair vantage point from which to draw conclusions.

Billy_Crash Franju's short 1949 documentary of a Paris slaughterhouse is riveting, disturbing and beautifully filmed in black-and-white.Though the subject matter and their ultimate demise is an eye opener, the manner in which men and women butcher the beasts is the most distressing. The butcher slaughter as calmly and methodically as anyone else doing a day's work. This coincides with Franju's belief that true, genuine horror is found in every day life - not in mad scientists, creepy monsters or wild story lines far removed from reality.Regardless, the cinematography is outstanding, capturing a moment in time few get to witness.If you're curious as to how animals were slaughtered fifty years ago, or if you have a taste for the macabre, this is the thought-provoking short for you.

fertilecelluloid Vile subject, fascinating treatment.Franju shoots the day-to-day workings of a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Paris with an unflinching lens. The result is surrealism by default, a black and white study of sanctioned animal murder.Though the environment is bloody and reminded me of German death camps, the workers go about their business with matter-of-fact professionalism. It was almost comical to see so many workers plying their trade with cigarettes hanging from their mouthsIt is a simple, powerful document that is not overstated. Its truth is its virtue.

lissener An astonishing document.A documentary shot with a surrealist aesthetic; images of unimaginable horror and violence--all perfectly real and unstaged--filmed with a languid and beautiful poetry. The images in this documentary about the slaughterhouse--the "abattoir," in the language of the narrator--are filmed with an almost cavalier, deadpan, unflinching clarity. The images of the lingering struggles of a decapitated calf; the satiny musculature exposed beneath the skin of a butchered cow, and the horrible but poetic moment when we see that the heart still beats beneath the sinews; the bored whistle of the beret-capped worker tapping the steaming spray of a horse's heart's blood; and then, the canal-concealing camera angle that shows us a barge bisecting a field of grass: "Blood of the Beasts" is a breathtaking celebration of the visual philosophy of surrealism.